The lawsuit, filed in the UK, seeks to reclaim lost revenue as a result of Google’s alleged anti-competitive conduct – namely, returning Foundem’s website lower in Google’s search results than it used to, costing the vertical search site valuable traffic. Because, you know, if your website doesn’t rank, and your business model depends on a third-party to survive, obviously Google is wrong.

Foundem’s lawsuit argues that Google’s reasoning for demoting its rankings (lack of original content) is unfair because a lack of original content is an “inherent characteristic of all search services.” It also pointed to the fact that Google now offers its own comparison shopping search option.

Not mentioned in the lawsuit as far as I can tell: Foundem’s SEO issues, which are likely the true reason its search rankings dropped.

About the author

Danny Goodwin formerly was Associate Editor of Search Engine Watch, where he also covered the latest search marketing and industry news. He joined Incisive Media in October 2007, in charge of copy editing columns that appeared on both Search Engine Watch and ClickZ. Prior to a life in the search industry, he worked in the journalism field, working in numerous newsroom positions, before later working as a freelance copy editor.

The U.K. Supreme Court has granted permission in part for Google to appeal against a ruling relating to a dispute over the user information through cookies via use of the Apple Safari browser.
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